Water & Land Solutions: Restoring & Mitigating

Our mission is to restore and protect natural resources through cost-effective, sustainable mitigation solutions that foster economic growth throughout the United States

Water & Land Solutions:
Your Restoration & Mitigation Partner

We strive to put people first and prioritize personal relationships with our customers, colleagues, and partners.

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We are pragmatic optimists who are passionate about ecosystem restoration. We see firsthand the difference our projects make. We understand that economic growth is a necessity and that growth often includes impacts on our natural resources.

At Water & Land Solutions, we know that impact mitigation can occur with economic growth. This allows us to leave a permanent imprint on improving and protecting the environment and our communities. We believe you will find our expertise, work ethic, and project flexibility distinctive and unparalleled.

Our Solutions

The projects we tackle are meaningful, sustainable, and focused on ensuring our customers are well served.

We integrate the latest advancements and applied research in natural resource management, water resource engineering, and construction practices.

And we work with you to understand your vision, bringing our creativity and experience to bear.

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Mitigation Banking

We develop commercial, compensatory mitigation banks across most of the United States. These banks provide traditional 404 stream and wetland credits and serve other credit markets such as riparian buffers and nutrients.

Customer Solutions

As our customer, you are a vital component of our business, and we view you as an extension of the WLS family.

Whether you’re a developer, a permittee, or a consultant, you have your own set of needs and objectives that must be met. We provide cost-effective, well-managed mitigation solutions executed promptly.

Landowner Solutions

At WLS, landowners are the critical stakeholder and crucial to successful ecological restoration.

Without landowner participation, the mitigation industry would not flourish. As landowners, we understand your land is an important asset and often the foundation of your family history. We want to understand your long-term vision. We’ll work with you respectfully to increase your property value and protect your asset.

Frequently Asked Questions

A mitigation bank typically consists of tracts of land where a mitigation bank sponsor has established, restored, enhanced, or preserved wetlands, streams, and/or species habitat to provide a mechanism for project developers to offset unavoidable impacts to aquatic resources or species habitat (e.g. compensatory mitigation) permitted and authorized under the Clean Water Act (CWA) or Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Mitigation banks must receive all pertinent permits and are certified and overseen by regulatory agencies including the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), United States Army Corp of Engineers (USACE), state agencies, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) also referred to as an Interagency Review Team (IRT). The formal certification or agreement between the bank sponsors and regulatory agencies is outlined in a mitigation bank instrument. The instrument establishes and addresses liability, performance standards, monitoring requirements, in perpetuity management/preservation and bank credit release numbers and schedules. The instrument also authorizes the geographic service area of the bank. Once regulatory approval is received, credits are certified and issued to the bank sponsor in stages as performance standards and success criteria are met. These released credits are “banked” and then available for purchase by permittees from the bank sponsor.

Mitigation bank credits are an integral component of a mitigation bank. Credits are defined as a verified ecological unit of uplift (or improvement) that results from the establishment, restoration, and/or enhancement of degraded streams, wetlands, riparian buffers, or species habitat. Depending on resource conditions and regulatory acceptance, small numbers of credits may be generated through preservation of non-degraded resources.

The difference between the three types of mitigation lies with the entity responsible for credit or mitigation generation coupled with financial risk and liability associated with mitigation performance. No matter the mitigation provider, each party is responsible for land acquisition, restoration design, permitting, short- and long-term maintenance and monitoring, financial assurances, and conservation encumbrances.

Mitigation banks are developed by third party mitigation providers that provides its own capital sources to fund and complete restoration in a watershed in advance of development. Purchase of credits from a mitigation bank give permittees a cost-effective and risk/liability free solution as mitigation bankers assume all risk of mitigation success.

In-lieu fee programs are established by a state or non-profit organization. In-lieu fee programs are issued advanced mitigation credits (prior to restoration) and these credit sales produce the revenue for ILFs to fund restoration projects after an impact has occurred.

Permittee responsible mitigation is mitigation that is completed at an on-site or off-site location within the same watershed as the impacts by an individual permittee. No credit is generated with this option. Instead, acceptable mitigation offsets and restoration is calculated during the permitting process and the permittee is responsible for mitigation success along with liability, risk, and financials associated with mitigation.

One of the most common misconceptions people have with mitigation banking is that it allows project developers to impact natural resources with no regulatory checks, balances, or consequences. That is simply not the case. Mitigation banks provide a streamlined and cost effect mechanism for permittees to fulfill their mitigation requirements through federal and state permit guidelines. Any permittee that wants to utilize banks or purchase credits would first need to receive all necessary federal and state permits prior to utilizing credit purchases. All permittees must demonstrate and meet avoidance and minimization of project impacts prior to the purchase of mitigation bank credits and subsequent permit approval through the applicable regulatory agencies.

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About Us

We’re driven by two things: restoring our natural resources and empowering people while we’re at it.